


a storm (you're starting)

by petroltogo



Category: The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bonds, Bonnie has Issues, Bonnie may or may not be haunted by a ghost, Bonnie saves Kol, Bringing People Back From The Dead Comes At A Price, Expression Magic Is Not Good For Your Mental Health, F/M, Hunter Jeremy, Jeremy has issues, Kol has Issues, M/M, Meddling, Medium Jeremy, Mental Instability, Minor Character Death, Multi, Original Character - Freeform, Plotting, Romance, Season 4 AU, Things do not go according to plan, who may or may not have ulterior motives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-26 14:34:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13859766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petroltogo/pseuds/petroltogo
Summary: "I saved the man you love. It's time for you to return the favour."Two years ago, Bonnie brought Jeremy back from dead. Now the time has come to repay her debt. By saving none other than the most unpredictable of the Mikaelsons: Klaus' younger brother Kol. Who is currently trying to kill them all. Unsurprisingly, things do not go according to plan. Or do they?





	1. (I'm) the violence in the pouring rain

**Author's Note:**

> IMPORTANT: This verse is based on one major canon diversion: Jeremy had a best friend that came visiting around the time of the ritual in S2. Klaus killed her in Jenna's place. Everything else is the same.

It's not real. None of it is. Not this house that she doesn't recognise—except for how it feels like home, more than home ever has, and it scares her, more than she'll ever admit—not the dead girl waiting patiently for her response, blood dripping down her arms, not the cold wind that whispers of things she doesn't want to know. It's not real. It can't be. Because if it is—

If it is then Jeremy's body, unresponsive and cold, lifeless, is real too. And Bonnie can't. She can't.

It isn't real.

Bonnie opens her mouth. Wants to tell the girl this. Wants to tell her that she isn't buying it, that she knows this is just another horrid dream too close to the life she lives for her to bear it. But what comes out instead is a soft, "People don't just show up to help. That's not the way the world works."

And she should be bitter, but bitterness takes energy. And Bonnie is so tired.

The dead girl—and Bonnie knows her name all too well, but she can't allow herself to think it, because that would be even worse—smiles. "Come on now, Bennett, I know you don't believe that." The tease sounds so natural. As though they've been friends for years. And in another life, maybe they could have been.

"I-" Bonnie trails off, with no idea what to say.

_I'm sorry I hated you? I'm sorry I was jealous of your friendship with Jeremy? I'm sorry I got you killed? I'm sorry you died in the ritual because you didn't trust us to save you after Klaus caught you? I'm sorry you were right?_

Maybe there is nothing left to say.

"I won't pretend I'm doing it out of the goodness of my heart," the dead girl admits. Absently rubs her chest, the wounded part right above her heart.

If Bonnie looks a little closer she can see the torn skin, see the splinters of the improvised stake Klaus used. She doesn't.

"You'll do it for Jeremy," Bonnie croaks. Because that, at least, she understands. Despite their differences, the short time she's known the girl, her loyalty to Elena's brother has never been questioned.

"No." the dead girl surprises her. "Death is not something to fear or to run from, Bennett. You of all people should know that." She shakes her head. There are leaves stuck in her wild locks.

Did they leave her body there that night, left alone and forgotten on that damned clearing after Elijah betrayed them and everything went to hell? Bonnie doesn't remember.

"I'm doing it because you'll owe me, Bennett," the dead girl says, sharp and serious, her eyes hard like chips of ice that leave no room for arguments. "And I will come to collect when the time is right."

It's promise and threat in one, but, more importantly, it's  _honesty_. Until this moment Bonnie hasn't realised how much she's missed being told the truth straight to her face. No lies, no evasions, just plain facts.

And she shouldn't trust it. Nothing good has ever come from striking deals with the dead. But Jeremy didn't deserve to die the way he did, pointlessly shot by Sheriff Forbes, still grieving for his lost friend.

Bonnie squares her shoulders. She's faced off against Klaus, against Elijah and Katherine. She's willing to spit on everything her gran taught her about the sacred balance to bring Jeremy back. Taking a dead girl's hand and making a promise she won't be able to go back on might be a mistake—but it won't be her first. It won't be her last.

It hurts. The dead girl's touch burns like liquid fire slowly dripping down her skin, and Jeremy's hands are too transparent to get a proper hold on, and Bonnie feels the sick desperation clawing at her throat, the helplessness as the dead witches judge her actions and find her wanting, and the fire lights up the house around her, the entire world, and it doesn't stop, not at the dead girl, not at Jeremy, not at Bonnie, and the  _screams_ , and—

Jeremy jerks on the ground. Chokes as his body tries to remember how to breath. And Bonnie feels sick, feels dirty, feels exhausted, feels stripped down to her very core, but she smiles.

It's worth it. Jeremy is worth it.

She repeats those words again later that night, when she falls asleep with the face of a dead girl burned into her closed eyelids. And again the next morning, when she can't get a hold of her magic like she used to. And again, every time her right arm itches just a little, where the dead girl's hand used to burn through her skin.

_"I will come to collect when the time is right."_

It's worth it.

It's real.

And so is the dead girl, watching from the shadows. Waiting.

*  
The first time Bonnie is sure she's seeing things. Her magic is still struggling to recover, sluggish and stubborn at the most inconvenient of times, but she's finding her footing again. Beginning to recover from everything she, they all, have been put through.

Jeremy is starting to smile again. He's quiet most of the time, and Bonnie isn't sure whether that's an aftermath of watching his best friend's murder or dying himself. She doesn't dare to ask. Afraid of the answer perhaps. Afraid of the accusation in his eyes.

But it's getting easier. Better. There are days now, when things are like they used to be. Only better, maybe. When Jeremy takes her hand and smiles at her like they have the whole world at their fingertips. When they kiss, short and sweat, and she can feel his heart beat steadily under her hand.

They're hurt, but they're alive, and they have all the time they need to fix this. Bonnie repeats those words in her head every day, and by now she's finally starting to believe them. To believe in her magic, damaged and scarred though it may be. To believe that maybe despite Stefan's disappearance and Elena's desperate search, despite Klaus rooming out there in the world, maybe this once they can have the peace they fought for so hard. That maybe broken things can be fixed, if only they are given the consideration and care they need.

Today, though, is not a good day.

Today, Jeremy walks around with red-rimmed eyes and a scowl that dares the world to take him on. Today, they fight over something stupid and pointless—because the bigger fight, the one that truly matters, is a fight they can't have, not without breaking themselves and each other beyond what even they can repair—and before Bonnie even knows what's happening, they're screaming.

"Why, because you can't leave me alone? Because the second you and Elena turn your back on me I'm gonna run back to Josh, ask him for another joint? I can live with you not trusting me, but the least you can do is stop fucking lying about it!" Jeremy yells, furious and sad, and all the more angry for it.

"I'm just trying to help!" Bonnie shouts back, and she didn't even know she was angry too, but  _oh yes_  she is. "I'm tired, Jer. I'm tired of measuring up to a ghost—and coming up short!"

The moment those words have left her lips, Bonnie freezes. She didn't mean to say that. She's sworn to herself to never, ever say that. Because—But it doesn't matter. The words are out there now, hanging in the air between them like paper thin glass shards that will cut them up to the bone if they aren't careful. And Bonnie can do many things, more than she would have thought possible just two years ago, but. She can't take those words back.

Jeremy's face is white with anger. He's pressing his lips together hard enough to suck all the colour out of them—an effort to hold back what he truly wants to say, Bonnie knows, and feels her heart clench with something too hopeless to count as pain.

And it's in that moment, as she stares at Jeremy with a look of horror previously reserved for hybrids planning to sacrifice her best friend in an ancient ritual, that it happens. For a fraction of a second, too fast for Bonnie's brain to process, she swears she sees the shadow of a dead girl at Jeremy's side. Swears she sees Jeremy twitch as her hand reaches for his shoulder.

Bonnie blinks and the girl is gone.

Jeremy closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "I think maybe we need a break," he says, eyes still closed, refusing to look at her. He doesn't sound angry anymore. Just tired.

Somehow that makes it worse.

*

That first time Bonnie thinks it's a fluke. And even if it wasn't, she's got other things to worry about. Like Klaus, who's abruptly shown up in Mystic Falls again. Or Stefan, who is not the man she remembers. (But who is, these days?)

When Elena calls her, helpless, upset, worried out of her mind, because apparently bringing Jeremy back has some side effects after all, Bonnie pushes her feelings aside and focuses on helping the people she loves. It's not like she doesn't deserve the heartache anyways. Not like—and boy, does it hurt to admit this, even inside her own mind—breaking up isn't for the best. For both of them.

Despite seeing dead people, Jeremy seems to be in a better place these days. A fact Bonnie carefully doesn't think too much about. Neither does she ask Jeremy if he ever talks to them. If he sees his parents. If he sees  _her_.

She doesn't think she has the right to ask. And if it hasn't occurred to Elena yet, what exactly his ability might mean, what it might entail, well. Bonnie sure isn't gonna be the one to enlighten her. Not in this. Not when it's so clearly helping him.

So she doesn't comment on the times she walks in on Jeremy suddenly cutting himself off, even though he's the only one home. She doesn't ask about the way his eyes flick away for a brief moment, like he's reflexively reacting to something only he can see. She doesn't point out the way his lips twitch sometimes even though nobody has made a joke. All she does it look at him and pretend not to see the ghost lingering in his shadow.

Because Bonnie wants Jeremy to be happy. And maybe that's not all she wants, but it's close enough.

*

Bonnie doesn't know why she's calling him. Alright, that's a lie, but it's one she'll stick to. It's not like Jeremy even bothered to say goodbye to her. Just packed up his things one day and moved to Denver with no warning whatsoever. Not that she has any right to be informed of his decisions, but that doesn't mean it don't hurt when she's so clearly left out of the loop.

But Bonnie has to call someone right now. And it can't be Elena because right now she doesn't even know if she can look at her friend. It can't be Caroline because she doesn't deserve to be pulled into this. It has to be Jeremy because. Well. She's trying not to examine her reasons to closely.

There's also the fact that he might not even answer her call. It's not like he's got any reason to.

Except of course Jeremy picks up after the third ring. Something in Bonnie's chest eases, takes the edge of an old pain she's gotten so used to, she barely notices it anymore these days.

"Bonnie?" He sounds confused, worried. She can't blame him.

"They killed Abby," Bonnie blurts out. Doesn't even know how the words make it past her lips, but somehow they do. Then quieter, because she's run out of tears and righteous fury an eternity and a half ago: "They killed my mother."

Jeremy hisses, a sharp sound over the phone. It hurts in her ears, but Bonnie doesn't mind. Anything is better than the poisonous numbness spreading through her veins.

There's another voice in the background saying something she can't quite make out, but she doesn't care. Jeremy mutters a quick, "Not now, Cole," and then he's talking to her in that calm, competent voice that first showed her that Jeremy has long outgrown his role as Elena's baby brother.

"Who?"

It's such a simple question. Bonnie wished the answer was just as simple. "The Salvatores," she says, and maybe it's not the whole truth, but it's the truth that matters. It's the men who know her, who she has fought for and helped out. The men who haven't come to her, don't trust her. Haven't even  _hesitated_.

Jeremy curses—very creatively, and some absent part of her is impressed by his choice of words—and then, for a long moment, he's simply quiet. Bonnie closes her eyes and listens to his breathing, the way she used to back when he'd first come back from the dead and she hadn't been able to fall asleep without some kind of proof that Jeremy was alive.

"Are you going to kill them?" Jeremy asks eventually, hushed but serious. Bitterly Bonnie thinks that Jeremy is perhaps the only one who's ever taken her serious. Who's ever been awed by her power, no matter how many times she got knocked down, got in over her head, instead of mocking her for it like everyone else seems so prone to.

There's many answers Bonnie could give him.  _Yes. No. I want to. I can't. In due time._  Each one is a truth in itself. What she ends up saying instead is something else entirely. Something she doesn't mean to ask, but desperately needs to know.

"Do you see her?"

She's not asking about her mother.

"Yeah," Jeremy admits after a few moments.

No lies. Not this time. Bonnie doesn't know what she'd expected, but his answer doesn't change anything. Of course it doesn't. She's sitting next to her mother's dead body, waiting for an awakening that will be worse than death.

"Good," Bonnie says eventually. Doesn't know whether she means it or not. "Take care, Jer."

He breathes, soft, alive. "You too, Bonnie."

*

It's not real.

There's bodies, bloodied and broken, covering the grounds as far as Bonnie can see. She doesn't look at the faces too closely—they're familiar, too many of them have haunted her dreams before, and she can't.

There's a dead girl among them, and she doesn't stand out at all, except for how she's standing. Staring. Watching Bonnie with blank, lifeless eyes. She's got claws instead of hands, and somehow that doesn't surprise Bonnie. Even alive she's always been more predator than prey.

Jeremy is dead. His body sprawled on the ground. And still the girl has her claws in him, buried so deeply in his flesh Bonnie doubts even in death he'll escape her grasp, and all she wants is to reach out and pull her off him, get him away from her, keep him save. But when she takes a step towards him, the grounds crumble beneath her feet, and the whole world grumbles and shakes as reality falls apart.

Through it all the dead girl's grip on Jeremy's body never lessens.

Her eyes, uncompromising and cold, meet Bonnie's gaze. "You owe me," she says, and somehow, above the breaking and tearing of the world, Bonnie hears her.

She keeps screaming long after she's woken up.

It's not real. But it's close enough.

*

Expression is not something you just slip into because you haven't been watching where you going. You need someone to lead you there, to push all the right buttons, to give you enough information to light the flame without burning you inside out.

Professor Shane is not that person.

He tries, Bonnie will give him that much, and he has ample conviction to make up for his lack of guidance, but how the man ever became a teacher is beyond her. He's giving her directions like he's repeating instructions from an out-of-date textbook. Information that might be relevant, but isn't what Bonnie needs to  _get it_.

But she's Bonnie Bennett and she keeps pushing until she finds her own way. And when she opens her eyes and sees a dead girl standing next to the professor with a frown on her face, Bonnie doesn't think about right and wrong and balance and justice. She follows the dead and she pushes, because Bonnie is so damn tired of taking the shoves lying down.

" _Soon_ ," the dead girl says, and real or imagination, a warning from the dead should always be headed.

*

"No."

The refusal is out before Bonnie has finished thinking the suggestion through, but she doesn't regret it. Doesn't plan on taking it back. There's a lot she's willing to do for Jeremy, and despite everything she knows this is a debt in need to be payed. But. There are lines she isn't willing to cross, people she refuses to let down. It's all the principles she has left and Bonnie doesn't know what will happen if she gives up on them too.

She's afraid she's going to find out soon.

The dead girl's scowl deepens. "This isn't your decision to make, Bennett."

"Bullshit!" Bonnie snarls back. "It's me who's gonna have to do it! You're not just asking me to save someone, you want me to betray my friends, my family! The only one I have left! Besides you're dead, what do you care anyways?"

The girl's expression could have been carved out of stone for all the life that's left in it. "I don't. That doesn't change what I want."

"You can't—Kol is crazy! He's gonna kill Jeremy and I'm not losing him again!" Bonnie cries desperately.

The girl's mocking laughter shouldn't hurt as much as it does, but her defences are weak these days. "Please. You gotta have something before you can lose it," the dead girl smirks cruelly. "And I'm not asking you to stand by and let Kol kill him. I'm not even asking you to betray anyone. A life for a life, Bennett. I saved the man you love. It's time for you to return the favour."

"What—When did you even fall in love with Kol, you've never met him!" But even as Bonnie speaks the world dissolves around her, and she doesn't need to turn around to know that the dead girl is long gone.

Of course she is. There is no room for the dead among the living.

_*_

_"I will come to collect when the time is right."_

_"Listen, if Jeremy kills Kol all the vampires sired by him will die and he'll have completed the hunter's mark."_

_"Denver was nice. Went to school. Met some cool people. But I guess I was just trying to pretend, you know? That I wanted this, a normal life? But. Don't know. That's always been Elena's dream, I guess. Not mine."_

_"I'm so tired of letting all of you push me around."_

_"Expression is the manifestation of your will. You could do anything."_

_"A life for a life."_

Bonnie closes her eyes, tries in vain to take a deep breath, calm her racing thoughts. But there's no easy way out of this, no simple choices to make, and, most importantly, the time to come to a decision is running through her fingers at a terrifying speed. Things are escalating, and will only get worse before they get better. If she's really going to do this—and a part of her still doesn't believe she will, even as the rest readies itself for the fallout—she'll need to do it now.

The time for negotiation and stalling has long since passed.

Jeremy's best friend is long dead, but in that moment Bonnie hears her laughing clearly.  _"If cheating death was easy, everyone would do it."_

"Bonnie?" Jeremy asks. He's trying to sound calm, but there's an undercurrent of nerves there that makes her smile. It doesn't seem to reassure Jeremy in the slightest. "What exactly are we doing this for?"

He's gesturing towards the pentagram they're both kneeling in, the bowl with both of their blood in it in front of her.

Bonnie isn't surprised by the questions. More surprised, actually, that he's gone along with everything so far, despite her refusal to provide answers. Even now she can't tell him, for what good is an ace in the deck when everyone knows you have it, but she can't bring herself to lie to him, so she compromises.

"Insurance," she says and murmurs the words that will make her answer true.

She hasn't made a decision regarding Kol yet—except that's a lie, but maybe if she repeats it often enough she'll start to believe it as much as she wants to—but whatever it is she'll do from this point on, Bonnie refuses to lose Jeremy over it. She won't allow that to happen.

In the echo of her chant, Bonnie hears the laughter of a dead girl. She grits her teeth and keeps going.

*

Bonnie is stumbling down the street. Her body still weakened by the drugs her mother saw fit to give her—and that thought sends a rage so cold through her, Bonnie doesn't know how she held back from ripping that woman's heart out. But she thinks she's starting to understand Klaus a little better now, and boy does that comparison piss her off.

The dead girl by her side doesn't exactly improve her mood.

"Are you even really here?" Bonnie grits out, even as she forces herself to walk faster. "Or am I really that crazy already?"

The dead girl doesn't answer. Luckily, Bonnie didn't expect her to.

"It's time," the dead girl says suddenly, the words weighted down by their heavy meaning. Bonnie doesn't even falter. She's been carrying the weight of this town's fate on her shoulders' for so long, she barely notices the added burden.

"I know," is all the answer she's willing to give. All the answer she has left to give.

Her hand closes around the thin vial of blood, the one she'd taken only hours ago, when Kol attacked her and she had forced him to his knees, broken his neck, just to be save.  _Insurance_ , she'd told Jeremy. Bonnie doesn't know how to call this one.

"Save him." It's a command. And even though Bonnie has long sworn to stop following other people's orders, the cut on her palm is almost natural. The words flow over her lips as easily as her favourite song.

Perhaps it's a good thing Esther unknowingly reminded her of the power blood holds—and the bonds that can be invoked through it. Perhaps saving Kol Mikaelson is going to ruin her best friend's chances of a normal, human life forever. Perhaps she is betraying everyone she loves, bringing their deaths down upon them.

Perhaps she's doing this, all of it, for a girl who isn't even there and a promise that holds no power over her now.

Perhaps none of those moments on the Other Side, fighting for Jeremy's life, pulling him back, were real.

But they were close enough. And Bonnie has a debt to settle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo, do you like it? Enough to maybe be interested in Part II? *smiles innocently* I hope it wasn't too confusing, but Bonnie isn't exactly stable towards the end. And if it helps, Bonnie's plan as well as the fallout will be in Part II. Do you have a suspicion on what exactly she did do? Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments! And remember that kudos are free ;)
> 
> Have a great weekend everybody!


	2. I'm a hurricane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wouldn't be Kol Mikaelson if death didn't follow in his wake.

In the end, Bonnie reaches the Gilbert home too late to do anything.

By the time she's standing on the doorsteps, there's a burning body and a raging hybrid, and Bonnie takes down the threat to her friends, to Jeremy, before she even realises that she's moving. Leaves him behind because that's easier than having her failure shoved into her face. Doesn't look back because the heartbreak of loss and missed chances isn't any easier to bear on the face of an enemy than a friend.

Jeremy walks by her side, silently. He's steadying Elena, who's still recovering from the blows Kol dealt her—and there's a part of Bonnie that wonders how her best friend walked away from this fight a victor, wonders if there even  _is_  a victor, considering—but he's keeping pace with Bonnie effortlessly. It's a nice feeling. Familiar and comforting.

They used to be good at this, her and Jeremy. Not always, but. Sometime after Bonnie had lost her gran, after Jeremy had lost Anna, when Elena had been too caught up in the whirlwind her life had become, they had clicked. An understanding that had never been explicitly expressed. Had later on been buried by mistakes and jealousy and secrets.

There are always secrets, these days. Some they keep for each other. Others they keep from each other. And to what end?

Bonnie almost snorts out loud at the turn her thoughts have taken. She doesn't face Jeremy, doesn't even look at him. She doesn't need to. The answer will always remain the same.

To keep Jeremy like this. Bloodied and bruised and exhausted and  _alive_. Bonnie will protect all her friends. Will walk through the fires of hell herself if she has to. But for Jeremy?

For Jeremy, she might just go a little further than for anyone else.

And in moments like these, when he matches her pace step for step, Bonnie wonders if he knows that. If Jeremy understands just how far she will go, just how far she has already fallen. Then she catches sight of his white-knuckled grip on the stake he refused to let go of, an echo of what looks remarkably like grief in his hooded eyes, and she thinks maybe Jeremy does get it after all.

*

They are at the boarding house. Officially, they're supposed to plan their next step. Wait for the mark on Jeremy's arm to complete itself and plot. But with Klaus out of commission and Rebekah sufficiently calmed—and no, Bonnie doesn't want to know how Stefan managed that, refuses to contemplate whether Rebekah is truly so blinded by her love for the younger Salvatore, or by her desperate wish to become human—it has turned into more of a holy-fuck-we're-still-alive celebration than anything else.

As per usual, Bonnie remains on the sidelines. She doesn't feel particularly festive at the moment. Neither does she feel particularly alive. There are too many dead eyes watching her. Too many cold breaths against the back of her neck, the touch so gentle it's hardly even there.

Jeremy is nursing his third whiskey. He's spent the last two hours bantering with Damon—from across the room, they're still wary of letting Damon close, even now—, reassuring Elena and smiling weakly at Caroline. Surrounded by vampires, witches and wolves, Jeremy stands tall, at ease. It strikes Bonnie then, how at home he looks in this crowd. And he should, shouldn't he?

He is a hunter now, after all. He may relish in killing vampires, but he is as supernatural as any of them. Humanity has become a rare treat in their circle.

Even Jeremy's smile and jokes can't quite hide his anxiety though. The furtive glances he throws at the incomplete tattoo on his forearm that, once completed, may damn or redeem them all. The tenseness in his shoulders. Jeremy still hasn't let go of the white oak stake either.

Absently, Bonnie wonders whether Jeremy can feel death clinging to him the way she does. Can feel its cold fingers stretching, reaching towards him.

Absently, she wonders when he has learned to lie like that.

Because despite his exhaustion and nervousness, Jeremy looks for all intents and purposes happy. Relieved. Satisfied.

And it's to be expected, considering the circumstances, considering what he has accomplished today. Except it doesn't match that short moment they shared, when they were still out of earshot of the boarding house, after Elena had already sped away to bring their friends the good news. When it had just been Bonnie and Jeremy, and the understanding that something happened that night that would define them for the rest of their lives.

_"He was my friend."_

It's such a simple statement. A fact. And it's not supposed to hurt, to burn, yet Bonnie can feel the flames gently licking her fingertips. She should have known, shouldn't she? A friend, a good friend would have. Would have asked about Jeremy's time in Denver. Asked about the friends he made. Would have wondered why Jeremy had Kol's phone number. Why he'd looked so terribly amused that one time Bonnie had seen Kol harass him at the Grill.

Bonnie loves Jeremy, always has. But maybe she isn't a good friend to him. Maybe she hasn't been in a while. Maybe, just like back when they were fifteen and Jeremy was Elena's  _baby brother_ , she just didn't bother to notice.

Across the room, Bonnie meets Jeremy's eyes as he raises his fourth glass at her. Mirrors the gesture. Because maybe they aren't quite on the same page anymore, but they still get each other. And even if no one around them realises it, Bonnie knows, just the same as Jeremy does, that this isn't a party.

It's a wake.

*

Bonnie notices it first. She isn't more sensitive to the dead than Jeremy. Less, actually, considering his past as a medium. But Jeremy is well on his way to being drunk—his intent, no doubt—and she's been waiting for it since she saw the insatiable flames in the Gilbert's kitchen.

Has been waiting for  _him_.

"Nice party. Not quite the turnout I expected, but it will have to do, I suppose."

Jeremy's head whips around inhumanly fast at the haughty words, the sneer so familiar Bonnie feels something loosening in her chest she hasn't even noticed was knotted together. In the middle of the room Kol turns on his heels, observes the room with an appraising glance and a healthy dose of derision.

Of course, dead or alive, Kol Mikaelson always knows how to make an entrance.

Jeremy drops his glass in a gesture of shock that Bonnie personally thinks a little exaggerated. They are in Mystic Falls after all. A town doomed to relive its past, where the dead haunt the livings' every step.

Why should Kol be an exception?

Jeremy's dramatics have drawn the attention of everyone else, not that it matters. They can't see, won't ever see. Because the dead aren't meant to keep touch with the breathing and an exception comes at great costs.

"You—you—" Jeremy stutters. It would be comical, if not for the fact that there is nothing funny about the past few hours. The past few years.

"Awww," Kol coos, "Look at you, gaping like a particularly unattractive fish. Why, darling, you didn't think getting rid off me would be that easy, did you?" His voice is really more of a purr, and Bonnie wonders if he's putting on a show. If Kol realises that no one except the two of them can see him.

Then again, it's  _Kol_. He probably doesn't care one way or another. He's standing so close now he's looming over Jeremy, even though they're about the same height. Even with Kol's every feature painted by a blood-thirsty fury and Jeremy's ashen face, with death clinging to them, lingering in the air around them like a light fog that never clears, they make a striking image.

 _Friends_  Jeremy had called them. A sardonic whisper in the back of Bonnie's mind wonders exactly how much that simple term really covers.

There's some yelling—Damon and Elena, of course—but it's only when Jeremy's horrified gaze meets her own that Bonnie is drawn out of her own thoughts.

"You're not a medium," Jeremy chokes out. He's addressing Bonnie, but his eyes flicker back to Kol, as though he can't quite bear to look away for too long.

"Neither are you," Bonnie reminds him hoarsely.

"Then how do I see the dead? Again?" Jeremy forces the words out like they physically pain him, the half-hearted joke barely recognisable as such.

Elena gasps, asks horrified whether Kol is here, what he's saying, but neither Bonnie nor Jeremy pay her any mind.

"You don't," Bonnie says, the words layered with a meaning she can't put into words. Because that would be admitting what she has done, what she's accomplished. What she's committed.

Perhaps Jeremy hears that, everything she can't voice, or perhaps he's subconsciously known all along. Almost on instinct, Jeremy grasps his forearm.

Where the hunter's mark remains incomplete.

*

Bonnie doesn't understand why everyone is so shocked. So surprised.

After all, she's done it all before, hasn't she? She's body-jumped Klaus once, to ensure her friends's survival. His body lit up in pretty flames too, and yet nobody died. A win-win for everyone. Granted, it's not the same situation, but they're still playing the same game.

They're in Mystic Falls, a town doomed to forever repeat its past.

And what walks among them is neither living nor dead, another line crossed between the blacks and whites of life and death.

Kol smirks at Bonnie, something like intrigue in his eyes, and isn't it curious, how the one who knows her the least is the only one who isn't surprised by this turn of events?

Oh, Bonnie has no illusions. Kol knows no more or less about her motivation than anyone else—because there are secrets and then there are secrets, and the second kind will only be kept between two people when one of them is dead, and  _she_  is—but maybe he doesn't care. Maybe he understands what she's done, and that's all that matters to him.

Or maybe he's just relishing in the knowledge that he's still here. That he's still got a hold on life, no matter how fragile it might be.

Bonnie wonders what he fears more, death or the ones waiting for him there. She wonders if his answer is the same as hers.

*

"What did you do?"

Surprisingly it's not Caroline who asks—well, demands. It's not even Elena. It's Damon. Or maybe that's not so surprising after all.

Bonnie tilts her head so that she can keep Kol, Jeremy and a glaring Damon in her sight at the same time. Her expression remains impassive. There are many people she owes— _I saved the man you love, it's time for you to return the favour_ —but Damon Salvatore is not one of them.

Why she answers, Bonnie doesn't even know. Perhaps she's simply tired of swallowing down the things that need to be said. Perhaps it's the mocking smile on Kol's face—so much like a girl she doesn't want to remember, and yes, it's clear as day in this moment what, whom, exactly Jeremy sees in him—edging her on. Perhaps it's Jeremy's expectant look because he, at least, deserves to know.

"I bound them," Bonnie admits, yet another crime she has committed. But at least this one she doesn't feel shame or guilt for. "Kol's life is tied to Jeremy," she meets Jeremy's gaze steadily then, "He won't die until you do—"

 _And I_ , she wants to add, but doesn't get the chance.

Damon is fast, his motions just a blur as he rushes at them. And maybe if Bonnie had been watching him, she could have stopped him. But as it is, all she sees is the sudden look of terror on Kol's face, is the sickening sight of Jeremy's head being snapped sideways, bent too far for his body to bear. All she hears is the deafening, terrible cracking of breaking bones.

All Bonnie sees is Jeremy, Jeremy crumble, Jeremy fall, Jeremy motionless, Jeremy lifeless, Jeremy dead, Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy.

And it can't be real. It can't be. Bonnie can't.

But there's the laughter of a dead girl in the echo of Elena's horrified scream, and it's close enough.

*

The thing witches struggle the most with when it comes to expression is that it isn't logical. Even magic has rules, its own sets that it follows, always and without question. Expression doesn't have those types of limits, expression isn't regulated or controlled. It's what makes it so dangerous. So addictive. So all-consuming.

When Bonnie weaves the bond the dead girl demands of her, she doesn't need to ask why it has to be Jeremy that Kol is bound to instead of her. She knows. Because Bonnie wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice herself for her friends, but she'd never, never sacrifice Jeremy. The dead girl knows this too.

So Bonnie weaves the bond as asked, except she doesn't play by other people's rules anymore. And so she doesn't stop, continues to weave her web instead.  _Insurance_ , she calls it, when she binds her blood with Jeremy's because it's true and she won't lose him again.  _Common sense_ , is her excuse, when she mixes what's left of Kol's blood with her own because triangles are magical, are stronger, more stable than an unequal exchange.

Kol dies, and though alive plus alive plus dead doesn't equal alive, he can't quite die either. The bond should have caused a backlash, but it is controlled, in parts, by the betrayal of one bond member destroying another.

It always had to be Jeremy. Not just because of the mark. And that, banking on Jeremy's willingness to betray Kol, to murder Kol, will haunt Bonnie in ways the blood on her hands never has.

When Damon kills Jeremy—and Bonnie will never truly understand what has caused this snap decision, will never comprehend how he could have thought that Elena would forgive her brother's murder when there is no magic ring to bring him back (except years from now, maybe, she'll realise that it was never about Elena, will listen to Kol's whispers about  _Always and forever_  in the dead of the night, the words infused with a bitter edge even eternity won't even out, and she'll muse that the relationship between siblings is something she will never understand)—the precarious web Bonnie has woven rips, and tears, and fractures.

Dead plus dead plus alive should equal something closer to death than life. But expression has no rules and no logic. And the bond, all the bonds, have been created by Bonnie. Have been fuelled by the desire, the determination, the desperate hope to keep Jeremy  _alive_.

 _Expression is the manifestation of your will. You could do anything._ That's what her grandmother once told her. So Bonnie  _does_.

As the bonds are rewritten and overloaded and forced back into place with a finality they were never supposed to gain, the magic at their core twists and turns to accomplish what it was always meant to do.

The backlash almost kills them all the same.

*

Jeremy is alive.

Bonnie knows this with a bone-deep certainty before she ever gets around to open her eyes. She feels it, somewhere deep within her being. Feels his bones and muscles righten themselves. Feels his lungs draw in their first breath. Feels burnt flesh scar over and regrow and heal. Feels the magic, wild and dark and beautiful, whirling just beneath her skin.

"What?" Elena is kneeling by Jeremy's side, her eyes wide with relief and the beginnings of fear. It's a look Bonnie has been subjected to more and more often of late. She's beginning to get used to it. "What did you do?" Elena whispers, and she sounds terrified of the answer even as she pulls Jeremy into a hug tight enough to bruise his rips.

In response, Bonnie simply shakes her head. She doesn't feel like answering anymore. Doesn't feel like playing by the rules. She hasn't for a while now. And especially not right now, after she's come this close to loosing Jeremy again.

Besides they're asking the wrong question.

"You know, Salvatore, you really need to learn to keep your hands to yourself," the dry drawl interrupts Bonnie's staring contest with her oldest friend. "This is the second time you tried to take my toy away now." Followed by a quieter and much more deadly, "There won't be a third."

Slowly Bonnie turns her head to the entrance door that nobody has payed attention to. She is unsurprised to find herself face to face with Kol Mikaelson. In the flesh. He's still shadowed by death, but no longer weighted down by it. And anyways, he wouldn't be Kol Mikaelson if death didn't follow in his wake.

Bonnie licks her lips, wonders if she should react in some way. It's hard to focus on the possible threat when her heart is beating so strong in her chest though. When its every beat is echoed. By the man she loves across the room, who's now holding his screaming sister in a hug that looks less affectionate and more restraining. And by the man who's standing above Damon's body, arm dripping with blood, a heart held tightly in his fist.

 _Welcome back_ , Bonnie almost says, but doesn't. It's not exactly sensitive in the face of Damon's murder. And besides Kol has never been gone in the first place.

After all, Bonnie always pays off her debts.

*

**The end**

*

**_(come and fade me) (or alternatively: After the end)_ **

Damon is dead. They all should be, probably. They did attempt to—and succeed, where it mattered anyways—kill an Original after all. The Mikaelsons are hardly the type to forgive and forget.

And for all the calm Kol exudes, how reasonable he looks as he delivers one final warning to the rest of them, Bonnie knows better than to believe such a laughable farce. She feels Kol's rage, breathtaking and all-consuming. Feels his desire, his yearning to murder Elena, to draw out every scream, every second of pain.

He doesn't. He looks at the rest of them instead. Observes them with cold murder in his eyes, and an arrogant sneer no one who's just been bested by a baby vamp and inexperienced hunter should ever wear. But it suits Kol.

And he doesn't kill them. Part of Bonnie can't quite believe it, even though she should have expected it. It's true, Kol wants them dead. More than he wants most of anything else, safe perhaps revenge on Klaus for all the decades lost to a dagger. But Jeremy loves Elena, fiercely and desperately, as only those fearlessly clinging to the last family they have left do. And Bonnie has lost much of the girl she was, hates much about the woman she has become, but she will protect her friends. Will defend them.

And perhaps none of that should stop Kol. But Bonnie can feel the echo of his heartbeat in her own, and though Kol may not love Elena and Caroline and Stefan and Tyler, Jeremy does, Bonnie does, and so Kol does too.

*

The bonds were supposed to be temporary. Weak, little things, easily cut once they'd served their purpose. Bonnie can't remember the last time any of her plans went off without a hithc. She isn't sure why she expected this one to be different.

Expression is volatile by nature. As powerful and unpredictable as the depth of the emotions it is built on. And so perhaps Bonnie should have foreseen this. Should have recognised the inevitability of the path she has carved out between them. For them.

There lies untold power in bonds forged by blood. What should have been a link on their life force, ensuring one would never truly pass without the other dead and gone already, has sunken deep into their bones, rewritten their very sense of self, and entangled strands that were not meant to come in contact with each other.

Bonnie is still Bonnie. Jeremy is still Jeremy. Kol is still Kol. But they are also BonnieJeremyKol in any possible formation. Are tied so closely together, have merged so fully with what they didn't used to be, that the cords can never be untangled again. They can't cut the bonds now, for there is no space left between them. They can only cut themselves.

Together, they are more than the sum of their parts. And for that—for every sound Bonnie's ears catch that they shouldn't, every soreness Kol feels that he shouldn't, every breath Jeremy takes after surviving what he shouldn't—they can not return to the roots they used to be.

They are bound, for better or worse. They are bound by something far, far stronger than love. Something that will last an eternity. Because it has to.

*

Caroline and Tyler leave. Together. Bonnie doesn't think they'll stay that way, but then people have a way of surprising you, and it's not like they don't have all the time in the world to figure it out. Caroline hugs her goodbye and promises to call and sends postcards from all over the world.

Elena and Stefan stay. Together. All that holds them together is their shared grief for Damon and memories of a love they used to have. But Bonnie knows better than to tell them that. It isn't her place. Not when Kol's hands always little a little too long on her shoulder, his hold around her waist just a smudge too tight to be casual.

They'll move past Damon, one day. Maybe they'll learn to let each other go in the process.

As for Bonnie, well. She is happy. She thinks she is anyways. She has Jeremy and Kol, and she loves them, and they love her. Well. Jeremy does. And Kol does because Jeremy does. And she loves Kol because Jeremy does. And maybe that's not natural, exactly, but they aren't natural.

And just because it's a love born out of this connection, built on the foundation of feelings they didn't used to have, doesn't make it less real now. It's not the same love Bonnie feels for Kol, Kol feels for her, not at all the same as what they both feel for Jeremy. But it's strong enough to hold them together. It's strong enough to be real.

So when Klaus rages and daggers Rebekah, Bonnie watches motionlessly. When he makes a threatening move towards Kol, she snaps his neck without a second thought.

Kol looks at her then and smiles, a good shade more honestly than ever before, and. How they began doesn't matter. What matters is that they can work with this.

*

They leave.

There's Bonnie whose magical power keeps growing like it'll never run out of fuel. There's Kol who's got magic dancing and crackling along his skin, curling around his fingertips like an old friend welcoming him home. There's Jeremy whose penchant to cheat death can no longer be written off as the side effects of a hunter's talents.

The world doesn't fear them yet. But it will.

It will.

_*_

_It's not real. None of it is. Not this house that she doesn't recognise—except for how it feels like home, more than home ever has, and it scares her, more than she'll ever admit—not the dead girl waiting patiently for her response, blood dripping down her arms, not the cold wind that whispers of things she doesn't want to know. It's not real. It can't be. Because if it is—_

_Jeremy is dead. His body sprawled on the ground. And still the girl has her claws in him, buried so deeply in his flesh Bonnie doubts even in death he'll escape her grasp, and all she wants is to reach out and pull her off him, get him away from her, keep him save. But when she takes a step towards him, the grounds crumble beneath her feet, and the whole world grumbles and shakes as reality falls apart._

_Through it all the dead girl's grip on Jeremy's body never lessens._

_"You can't have him!" Bonnie yells, desperate and hopeful and relieved. Because it's true. Jeremy is as far from dead as he can ever be, beyond his reach for as long as the Originals still remain untouchable. And it's petty and cruel, but it's the only satisfaction Bonnie has left._

_Across the field, covered by bodies broken and bloodied, carelessly left behind, the dead girl meets Bonnie's eyes. There's a calm in those eyes that only the eye of the storm carries in itself._

_The dead girl smiles._

_"I saved the man you love. It's time for you to return the favour." The girl doesn't scream. She doesn't have to._

_"I did," Bonnie spits back. "Your precious Kol is as safe as he'll ever be."_

_But maybe the words haven't been spoken out loud after all, because the dead girl doesn't stop smiling. Doesn't twitch. Doesn't react at all._

_She still hasn't let go of Jeremy's body._

_"I saved the man you love. It's time for you to return the favour," she repeats. Smiles like she has just told the biggest joke, and the whole world is in on it except for Bonnie._

_And damn, but Bonnie is tired of the nightmares. The guilt. The games. She's tired of watching a dead girl's grabby hands on her boyfriend._

_At least if it was Kol, Bonnie could understand. But Kol isn't here._

_The world doesn't quite stop turning, but there's a sick, pulling sensation in Bonnie's stomach that means it might as well have. Because Kol isn't here. Kol has never been here. Jeremy is._

_It's always been Jeremy._

*

Bonnie stares down at the grave. It's unimpressive, simple. There are fresh flowers, curtsey of Jeremy, no doubt. No photos though, nor candles. She hadn't felt any desire to return to her home town after finally leaving it behind, and yet here she is. Confronting one last, restless ghost.

The girl who loved Jeremy more than she loved anyone or anything else in the world. The girl who despised her, thought her undeserving of Jeremy's love and attention. The girl who was callous and mean and didn't deserve a meaningless death in a ritual that never revolved around her.

_"I saved the man you love. It's time for you to return the favour."_

Despite herself Bonnie smiles. She always had a talent for games, for lies and deflection. Never had she actually told Bonnie that she loved Kol. Just stated that his death needed to be avoided at all costs, and let Bonnie draw her own conclusions.

She had been played. They all had.

And really, after everything that had happened, Bonnie should have seen it coming. The only thing about the dead girl that had never been questioned had been her unyielding loyalty to Jeremy. And yet. Bonnie hadn't seen it. Hadn't bothered to look. Still hadn't learned from her own mistakes.

There is no excuse for her lack of foresight. They are in Mystic Falls, after all, a town forever doomed to repeat its past.

This, all of it, pulling Jeremy back from the dead, saving Kol, forcing Bonnie to bind Kol and Jeremy's lives together, manipulating Bonnie into taking her own steps to ensure Jeremy's safety, all of it had been about one thing and one thing only; saving Jeremy. Giving Jeremy, who loves Bonnie, who has somehow, impossibly, fallen in love with Kol, everything he wants.

Maybe this exact bond isn't what the girl had been aiming for—Bonnie likes to think she isn't so predictable, likes to think her entire life hasn't been planned out by the machinations of a dead girl—but she can't be sure. She won't ever be sure.

With a sigh, Bonnie sinks to her knees. Gently places the white roses in front of the grave stone.

Life isn't perfect. But there are two hearts beating alongside her own, there is Jeremy's genuine love for her, for Kol, purer than anything they'll ever be able to match. And the happiness in Bonnie's chest feels hollow, but the warmth of  _Jeremy, Kol_  drown it out until she can almost forget. Until there are no ghosts haunting them that she can feel anymore.

Maybe that won't work forever, but she'll find a way. Bonnie always does. The truth is an ugly thing, but she'll learn to live with it. Just like she has done all her life.

Because this isn't her happily ever after. It was never supposed to be. It's Jeremy's.

It's close enough.

**The (final) end.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...yes, there is a purposeful vagueness to this entire story. And yes, there is some not-so-hidden-serious angst. But I'm really really curious what you think so before you leave, please consider sharing your thoughts in a comment! Have a lovely Friday, my dears!


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